


Tending towards clarity are things obscure

by FleurL



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23854399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleurL/pseuds/FleurL
Summary: Portami il girasole impazzito di luce. Sephiroth and Aerith look for their path in a dim world, and the place where they meet radiates with light.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Prologue. No world for fairytales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He holds out a hand, she takes it. All around them, the neon lights flow down in green gushes.

Prologue. _No world for fairytales_

She walks across countless sparks.

There is no color outside the pastel wall in her room, and the cold, flickering mako leds are barely enough to shape a path. But she sees things only children can see, and everything in the bleak Shinra building, with its wires and steel plates, speaks to her of magic. The Planet hums tender in her head, and behind each door is a wonder.

_Fairytales are not for this world, Aerith._

How so?, was all she had asked. Gast hadn't had the strength to finish the admonishment, and had settled for a reassuring smile, hoping to quench her curiosity some other way. "Just remember, my love", he had stood, and closed the sliding door. That one led to the insides of the main lab corridor; he had pointed to the door on the opposite wall. Hojo had been so kind as to let her have a "backyard" - no actual sun, but water at least, and wooden toys. "This world is big and scary. But as long as you stay with us, and don't come across strangers, you will be safe".

But right now she isn't coming across any. She feels excited, and happy, and suddenly, on a whim, she starts to run, almost tripping on the white camisole with her bare feet. Mom has been sleeping for a while; but she cannot, and a longing song spoken in foreign words rings in her ears.

Everything is fine, no strangers, see, daddy?

She hasn't taken the backyard door.

She misses a step. It's not a long fall, but the rusted metal handrail clangs against her control bracelet as she tries to hold on to it. The noise is enough to attract footsteps and Aerith, lying with her face to the ground, shivers terribly. No matter how bad she tries, she cannot breathe.

"Who are you?"

This isn't the voice of the bad man, thinks Aerith. The bad man is as tall as daddy is. This is no man.

He turns her around with one hand, his left. She covers her eyes.

"You're just a baby." He seems to be assessing how much of a threat she poses. "Not older than 7".

She opens one eye and sees his own. They shine with an uncanny gleam, and everything around him seems to lose its borders, as if he's summoned the enchanted wood from her favorite book. At once, she is not afraid.

"I'm Aerith and this is the road from the door of my home."

His gaze is almost kind. She can see him full now, he's crouching and he's just like her - well, no, she thinks, not like her, but then not like daddy and the bad man. He must be something in between, not a child, not a man, she reasons as he studies her. But his gaze is kind and his hair silver, like the elfin creatures in Mom's tales.

"So you live down there, Aerith?" He holds out a hand, she takes it. All around them the neon lights flow down in green gushes.

"Come on", he says, still holding her hand and looking straight ahead, proud and tall as if he's leading an army. "I'll take you back".

 _Fairytales are for this world,_ she thinks.

——————

She is being led this time: Ifalna runs through the dim corridors of the labs. Suddenly there's blinding light everywhere, and noise, a screeching noise that comes in waves like the voice in the back of her head. Aerith is mad with fear. She wants to cry but there's no time, they're following up close with heavy steps and shouts and she cannot keep up, she tries, she falls. Mom kneels, her face is white in a way she's never seen - she scoops her up and resumes her run, panting. Aerith hides her face in the crook of her neck as the hall comes to an end. Ifalna can see them, in the transparent cabin of the elevator coming down on them, and blindly reaches the stairs. She hears something piercing the air and sudden, deafening blows that make her shudder. Ifalna's breath comes in ragged fits now, as if she's drowning in a thick liquid. The Planet screams in her head.

They are at the end of the staircase. It's some kind of underground storehouse, and as mom shuts the door everything goes black. A slim, thin blade of light slips through a crack in the upper section of the wall. She thinks she sees something small and flickering dancing in it.

"Mommy, please, don't cry, they will come to save us". Ifalna sobs and hugs her so tight it's hard to breathe.

"Please, mommy, they're coming".

Aerith has never seen her so devastated, so hopeless. It shakes something deep in her and she prays again to the kind music of the Planet.

"Who, my love, who is coming?". It's a whisper.

"The people from the tales, mommy. I met them."

It's all that it takes to shatter the small ring of hope Ifalna's holding on to. She sees her tilt her head back and grasp a fistful of hair as tears flow down her exotic face. When the door slams open, she doesn't even try to run - she clutches her baby to her breast and says "please", without looking.

Aerith can barely see through her hair and her mother's green silk sleeve. Far back in the corridor, a siren keeps ringing. She catches a glint of silver.

"Please don't kill her, please. Hojo sent you, isn't it? Please let her live." Ifalna's voice is broken and Aerith feels something hot and liquid pour through her fingers as she holds her chest.

"Please-"

"Hush, woman, not so loud. They'll hear you".

She knows the voice. It's so calm. Now Mom has let her go a little and her eyes are wide with fear and something she cannot recognize. In two long strides he reaches them and Aerith tries to take in the clear embers of his eyes through the tears that fill hers. He's taller and dressed in a way she cannot identify, a blue uniform with something heavy on his shoulders. His face seems again strangely serene and distant, as if he's seeing her from some far away place.

"Hello, Aerith".

_Fairytales are for this world, because this world is made of them._

—————


	2. 1; Bring me the sunflower that I may replant it / in my garden burnt by salt air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elmyra doesn’t ask questions, for she knows that things like Aerith only exist in the uncertain light of the evening, and don’t last long.

1\. _Bring me the sunflower that I may replant it / in my garden burnt by salt air_

Elmyra doesn’t ask questions and just watches over her. She knows from that time at the station that the stars, for once, have been kind to her, for this child makes her remember beautiful things she thought lost. So, from that day on, she keeps taking infinite care of that small life, cherishing her and hoping to take the trouble from her eyes. For her joy, it vanishes soon, along with the shape of the sad woman lying in front of the train.

Elmyra has seen much, and like all the people from the slums knows from birth that everything has a price, that you have to mind your own business, that the sky is not for her and that life resembles a grueling ascent on a dry and burnt hillside. There may be moments of rest, but after there’s just more sand and rocks slipping under one’s feet. A small mistake means falling down and hitting, hard, the desert soil. There is no running water for those like her on this path. For sure, there are no flowers. 

Elmyra is from the slums, doesn’t ask questions, and doesn’t believe in miracles. 

This is why today she almost misses her step and scatters all the meager content of her basket from the Sector Five Sunday Market. It’s a long path from there to her small house - she chose a secluded one, far from the crowded alleys, for a woman and a child wouldn’t have lasted long in there - and with the heavy supplies on her hands she doesn’t manage to look up. When at last she does she feels like she’s losing her balance and suddenly she’s afraid she’s starting to see things, to lose her mind, for miracles don’t exist, but her house today is almost nowhere to be seen amid waterfalls of shining flowers. 

Her house, her old slum house is built on solid, arid, red ground. She knows that for sure. She can’t be mistaken, they even cut her rent for that (“crazy woman, who would want to live in that shack in the middle of a desert?”). But her house is there and all around it a radiant garden of tulips and dahlias flashes with pure light. 

With her back to Elmyra, the girl stands, as in a dream, in the middle of it.

“Aerith”, she manages after a while, her voice tinged with disbelief, “I told you to stay in when I’m not home...”

“You’re here! Mom!” She’s fourteen now. Her face is starting to slowly lose its childish traits and it seems as if someone wiser, more mature, is moving underneath it.

“You wandered too far, Aerith, you have to be careful,” Elmyra says, crouching while she extends her hand to caress a petal, as if to make sure it’s real. 

“I had the most wonderful dream, Mom”, Aerith whispers as she hugs her. The small valley resonates with crickets and for a moment she thinks she hears a faint, forlorn song in the distance. 

“A flock of mockingbirds came to my window. They told me they wished for a sunflower for their queen, but couldn’t find one. But I knew where it was! I told them, and they took me on their wings, we flew to the sky, and it wasn’t steel anymore, it was green!”

“Aerith, the sky isn’t green”, but she is smiling as she says that.

“And we found the sunflower there, up high”. 

Her girl is suddenly serious as if she’s telling the most natural things. Elmyra loves her so much that sometimes it hurts, and she’s afraid that one day she will vanish in a gust of wind, just like her tulips had appeared. Yes, she thinks as she holds her, she would go some place far, far away, some promised land where she belonged more than this barren earth. And with her, her flower fields, the grass smell, the miracles that shed a sparkle of light on Elmyra’s coarse existence would be gone. 

But now her girl is here, and sighs in contentment, murmuring something to the white meadows.

Elmyra doesn’t ask questions, because she knows that things like Aerith only exist in the uncertain light of the evening, and don’t last long. 

_Portami il girasole ch’io lo trapianti_ /

————

“Hello, Elmyra. How’s work going? You look better today”, says Stan, while taking her filter and inspecting it with expert hands. It’s cold and humid outside, and it must be raining over the plate.

She offers a small smile. “I can’t complain, you know. Winter means more sweaters and scarfs and gloves, and Aerith helps, too”.

“Ah, the little one. You know, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’s using one of her magic tricks on you. You look so serene lately”. 

“Yes, a magic trick”, she says, and the word bear a bittersweet nuance as she utters them in the small, metal-clad shop. “It must be so, because all is well, and she’s always so happy. You know, sometimes I think...” words fail her and she falters.

“Go on, don’t you worry. I heard the strangest tales”.

“It’s as if”, she breathes, “the world itself with everything in it is celebrating that she’s alive”.

_/nel mio terreno bruciato dal salino._

—————-


	3. So it may all day show to the azure-lit heavens / the anxiety of its yellowish face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don't pray to be heard.

2\. _So it may all day show to the azure-lit mirrors of the heavens / the anxiety of his yellowish face_

He rises through ranks as soon as he’s admitted in, at fourteen, even though the older Colonels all deem such a thing crazy and impossible. He’s taller, stronger, faster than the others. He anticipates orders and remember every detail of maps and reports. Soon training sessions don’t match his abilities, and they need to develop a new simulator. They try to convince him to bring guns and artillery with him on the field, but there’s just no comparison with how _right_ a sword fits in his hands, and he always refuses. It adapts so graciously to his arm that all he needs is a smooth movement with his wrist and the blade descends in a fatal arc. It’s so easy it almost scares him. They tell him he will need a kalashnikov against the bigger elephant-like monsters of the great plains - their skin is thick. When he ends them his breath isn’t even short. 

Everybody seems to think that his is a special existence, and in the end he believes it too. 

————-

One day they tell him there is a large drug organization apparently holding control over the whole slum black market, and Shinra won’t allow it. He sees what the smugglers do to children and couriers that don’t follow orders and it makes him wince slightly as Director Tuesti gives them instructions during the squad conference. 

They send him to deal with them. It’s his first assignment as a commanding officer. The metal badge announcing his rank swings slightly on the tissue of his uniform, its weight foreign. 

It takes him three days. He’s never been under the plate, and even though he is smart enough to understand what class difference is, the misery of these people strikes him. The new drug, a reeking mix of mako powder, glue and something else he cannot identify, is everywhere, and even young boys inhale it through dirty plastic bottles. Once, out of pity, he asks a beggar about it - he can’t be older than twelve. He shrugs and points to the thing he calls home down in the humid street, where his siblings try to forget hunger until the day comes to an end. 

He tracks the dealers one by one, interrogates them. His face is a mask of anger. That’s when he first realizes that people can’t stand to look at him for long. They quiver with fear at the sound of his voice, and he’s only sixteen, even though he already towers over most of them. They tell him everything, and when they won’t, he kills them with one swift, silent motion. They make no sound as they fall. The rest of them is so scared that hands him the map with the drug storage wells, praying for him to spare their lives. 

He’s proud of that, he tells himself. He’s so strong. 

When he comes back, no bruise on his face, he notices that his teammates - his _subordinates,_ Heidegger reminds him - behold him with the same trembling gaze. 

He’s not so sure he’s proud of that anymore.

—————

They give him another promotion for that. He stands tall in front of his men, military stance embedded so deep in his demeanor it’s almost natural for him to shift into it. President Shinra himself is going to be there, and Sephiroth wonders what such a powerful man, holding so many lives in the palm of his hand, looks like. Heidegger compliments him, a fat hand on his metal-clad shoulder. His gaze is so cold that the director takes it away immediately.

“You must be proud, Major - forgive me, _Colonel_.” The tone is mincing. Sephiroth doesn’t even look at him. “This scum has been plaguing Midgar for years. Now we get rid of them in a single week, and thanks to one man!” Everyone cheers at that, even Scarlet, smiling at him in a sultry way from the corner of the glass hall. He doesn’t say a word. 

“We can say, with no small satisfaction, that Shinra guaranteed once again for the well-being of all of our sectors!” All of the press is there and that single sentence is recorded dozen of times. The journalists clap in unison, and he fights the urge to break something for the sake of military loyalty. He can still see the eyes of those children. 

The President is here. The flashes of cameras go wild as he holds Sephiroth‘s hand for long seconds in the middle of the room. He takes the chance to observe him, ice green eyes piercing his. After a couple of seconds, Shinra looks away. 

He feels the older man’s hand slightly tremble, and can’t help but smile a cold, evil smile. 

“You are our spearhead, Colonel Sephiroth. Do you have anything to say on such an important day?” Now that he’s moved some steps back, the President seems to have regained his composure, once again the proud, accomplished businessman. 

All the microphones and cameras turn towards him. His whole figure is now on display, the lean, well-built shape that’s going to become so familiar for the people of Midgar. The small screens of the devices frame the image of a sixteen-year-old boy with haunting eyes, a beautiful face and a uniform almost too big for him. 

Everyone is waiting. Slowly, he reaches a hand behind him, grips the hilt of his Soldier standard blade. For a split second, he distinctly feels the crowd hold their breath, and sees the familiar, fleeting flash of maddening fear in Shinra’s eyes. He enjoys it. 

“I need a lighter sword”, he deadpans, throwing the blade at the floor, a centimeter away from the President’s feet. The weapon clangs unpleasantly loud on the steel pavement. 

He walks away without another word, his step deliberate and elegant, and no one dares to follow. 

—————

There’s this place in the slums he discovered where he can find peace. Nowhere else the constant worry that has been accompanying him for a year seems to fade and wither away. The new Soldier on his elite unit had even dared to ask him where he went, but Sephiroth wouldn’t tell. He stumbled upon it on one of those snowy days, after having killed the Organisation boss, and no one else seemed to know if its existence. 

“Well, if you won’t tell me where your sanctuary is, you could at least explain what is it that you keep thinking. People notice, you know”. This new boy looks just like one of the many who tried to gain his trust, so they didn’t have to face his disdain. He could brush him off, but for some reason he doesn’t find him unpleasant like the others. 

“So?” He has a smug smile on his face and bright, reddish hair. 

“What must I do?”

“What?” The man watches him in utter confusion, he isn’t sure if because of the answer or the fact that he has actually answered.

“What must I do? What is the right way to live?” Sephiroth stands, pushing behind the office chair and heading for the door. “That’s what I keep thinking”.

_e mostri tutto il giorno agli azzurri specchianti /_

—————-

He has just come back. Usually, the place has a soothing effect on him; this time, though, it’s like its calming force is watered down by something thick and obscure enveloping him like a shred. It won’t go away.

It’s dawn, and the golden rays seep through the gears and wires of the sector pillar. They’re so thick and blinding today that they look like they could melt down steel. 

He doesn’t feel tired - he has come to learn he can go on for days without sleep - but there’s something pulling at him, stretching him, and he feels like his whole body has become a transparent sheet of carbon paper, on the verge of being shred to pieces. He has the strangest notion that everything’s waiting for him to choose, to decide himself, but he doesn’t know for what.

—————

On a platform of shining glass prays a girl dressed in pink. 

The image burns itself in its retinas. It radiates the golden hue only perfect and dangerous things have. He’s in the dirty streets of Sector Five and there’s no glass here, no white trees - when did he see them again ?-, and suddenly there’s a flash, a sharp pain in the back of his head, and the image is gone.

_Or is it?_

A girl prays, her eyes closed, her hands tightly clasped. But she’s here - is she? -, on the dusty, grey Midgar soil. He blinks again a couple of times, as if trying to dissipate an invisible, watery fog lidding his eyes.

She’s kneeling in front of a bundle of lead pipes. The pink of her dress flickers before his stunned gaze, and suddenly it’s azure. 

He raises a hand to his aching temple. 

“I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize I was in the way”. She stands hastily, clumsily, almost scared. Her eyes are green in a way he’s never seen. 

_I know her._

It’s all he manages to think, his head throbbing with pain. He can’t seem to bring himself to look away from her, their eyes locked. Suddenly, there’s utter silence. 

She holds his gaze and doesn’t flinch. It’s the first time someone dares. 

Normally, Sephiroth doesn’t linger in the streets, for people are starting to stop him to praise him, to ask him questions, to touch him, sometimes just to look at him in awe. Most of all, he doesn’t speak to them.

“Why do you pray?”

She isn’t scared by the deep, sudden tone of his voice. She isn’t even scared of this complete stranger - but is he? - asking questions out of the blue. But she’s feeling the way he feels, he can tell from the intensity with which she’s looking at him. 

“Why do you think I’m praying?”. She looks lost in so many ways, and she’s so young, but in her voice lingers something resolute.

He should go. He takes a step towards her. 

“I always found it a stupid, useless thing. No one will hear you. It doesn’t change anything.” 

She shakes her head and smiles. “You don’t understand”. 

He wants to touch her and at the same time to run far, far away. The pain in his head won’t go. 

“You shouldn’t wander in the streets at this early hour. No one is around”, he says, as if trying to force some sense into this strange morning. “I don’t see why you would come here of all places”. 

She shifts, uncertain, and looks down at the thick cylinders of the tubes. On one of them a green cut bleeds shining liquid. Its cracks draw a fluorescent pattern on the black metal. 

“Here, the Planet is a bit closer”, she says softly, as if it’s a normal explanation. Nonetheless, he understands. “But not much”. Her eyes are so sad. 

“Come with me”, he hears himself say. He’s given up on making sense of this day, and he’s not surprised when she nods and follows, as if attracted by a magnet. 

He still hasn’t shown it to anyone, but he was certain all along that such a thing wasn’t for him. Now he knows. 

“I’ll show you a place”. 

——————-

“A church?” 

Her look of complete wonder, even if she’s almost seventeen, is that of a child. A memory fights to resurface from somewhere deep inside him but he cannot grasp it. 

“It’s strange that they left it standing. Maybe it’s because nobody comes to this side of the Sector anymore. All the more safe.” 

Their footsteps echo across the vast aisle. She stops in front of a window, the pastel colors from the painted glass dancing sweetly on her cheeks. 

“Oh, there’s a hole in the roof!” 

“I never said it was a luxury place. But I think you can pray in peace”. 

The sadness in her eyes is gone. As he looks at her, stepping through the river of light cascading from the roof, he knows he’s done the right thing. 

“Thank you”. 

Suddenly he feels out of place. He barely nods at her and leaves. 

“Sephiroth?” She stops him at the threshold. _When did he tell her his name?_

“You don’t pray to be heard”. It takes him a moment to understand she’s referring to his question. 

“You pray to be able to hear”. 

_/ del cielo l’ansietà del suo volto giallino._

———————-

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note:
> 
> this was a one-shot ar first, but I made it a multi-chaptered story. I always loved these two characters, and how they seem to set themselves apart from all the rest. So it was kind of natural to try and depict them through some variations on the theme of light, that in my mind suits them a lot.
> 
> I'm sorry for any mistakes - english is not my mother tongue and every correction is welcome!
> 
> the title stems from a poem by the Italian 20th-century poet Eugenio Montale, "Portami il girasole" (Bring me the sunflower).
> 
> _Bring me the sunflower that I may replant it_
> 
> _in my garden burnt by the salt air_
> 
> _that it may all day long offer the mirroring azure-lit_
> 
> _heavens the anxiety of its yellowish face._
> 
> _Tending towards clarity are things obscure,_
> 
> _dissolving are the bodies in a current of hues: these, in music._
> 
> _To fade away is thus the adventure of adventures._
> 
> _Bring me the flower that leads_
> 
> _where blonde transparencies soar_
> 
> _and life turns to vapor as essence:_
> 
> _bring me the sunflower sent mad with light_


End file.
